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Rating: “This is a strange plant: it's strong if it grows where it was born; it's weak as soon as you move it somewhere else.”
This is Bruno.
A true mountain man from another time. Around here, he would be described as “taià zo col manaròt!”. A child already grown up, of few, very few words, who lives in symbiosis with his mountains, his streams, forests, pastures, meadows, stones, paths, and animals. At 12 years old, he meets a curious peer who spends summer vacations in the remote village in the mountains of the Aosta Valley.
Pietro is a city boy from gray Turin and gradually forges, with shyness, a deep friendship with Bruno; a real and simple bond fully living the mountainous territory. Few dialogues between them, almost adult-like in depth, and a lot of room for images. Often tight frames with attention to details that unite Pietro and Bruno to that land. Great importance is given to sound, to the silences that well represent the return to peace after months of frenetic chaos.
Pietro and Bruno already have two lives set: one is a paved road, the other is narrower and full of bends. They are not for them and they refuse them in different times and ways. The mountain unites, and it is a silent and indissoluble bond that knows how to wait, stewing like embers inside a fireplace that retains heat. The two boys lose each other for 15 years and finally reunite in their thirties, and it's as if no time has passed.
Bruno is tough and pure, and even when he starts his own family, he brings out his more negative and selfish side that does not allow him to compromise on the type of life he had decided to live. He wants to stay in his mountain in the center of all the others and is willing to pay the extreme consequences. It reminds me, in determination and selfishness towards his loved ones, of that friend of mine who was finally taken by an avalanche at 26 years old at 7800 meters in the Himalayas. Pietro, on the other hand, is more romantic and in desperate search for meaning: he knows he cannot find it within the boundaries of that first mountain, from which he struggles to distance himself and he doesn’t want to end up like his father, trapped in a life full of duties and responsibilities. His father... Such a beautiful figure that, in some ways, reminded me of my own. Dutiful and rigorous at work but with a wilder and freer hidden soul that, to make ends meet and give everything to his children, kept suppressed for 11 and a half months of the year.
With true mountain people, you can always rely on them: true friendships are those that remain silent for years and only make themselves felt when they are truly needed. I think of Cris who stays up in a hamlet beneath the Marmolada in high “Val de Fascia”, I haven’t heard from him for years, but if I asked him for help, he would be here in a flash, and so would I. We don’t say it, but we know it. Bruno and Pietro cement their bond with sweat and effort, building the cabin that Pietro's father had always dreamed of: in the middle of absolute nothingness among his mountains. And it is during this venture that Pietro understands and realizes he had not known his father, that he had judged him too harshly. 10 years wasted out of pride without reconciling, and a regret he cannot swallow, no grappa will help!
“You cannot always return to the mountain that stands at the center of all others, and at the beginning of your own story. And so there is nothing left but to wander the eight mountains for those who, on the first and highest, lost a friend.”
This is Pietro.
I did not appreciate the voiceover by Marinelli, too theatrical, and I can understand that for those who are not lovers of alpine landscapes, the pace of the work at times is perhaps too slow: with an overall duration of two hours, it would have been even more beautiful and enjoyable. The cinematography is of high quality but not as spectacular as it could have been: in my opinion, it was a deliberate choice because the focus was on personal relationships with the common denominator represented by the allure of the harsh mountain and this is also the reason why the first part, that of childhood, was so long. The performances by Borghi and Marinelli are solid and convincing, and I agree with the choice to limit the soundtrack to give space to natural sound with dialogues, yes reduced to the bone, but sharp.
I grew up among the mountains and valleys of Trentino, and the people with whom I experienced the area above home, the wild Lagorai and then the Western and Eastern Dolomites, are those dearest to me. Vivid memories, as full as the emotions of the first 3000, the first via ferrata, the first high route, the first “way” as a second, the first storm at altitude with the raincoat, the sound of the ice axe digging and the crampons kissing your calves on the descent, the vivid fear of an exposed pass on a ledge or the sight of a viper, the scratching of the leg on granite, the blisters down to the flesh, the feet in the rejuvenating stream, nights at the refuge and setting off with the headlamp and sparkling stars, glacier progressions, the boozy return and the laughter! But above all, the silences and those immense spaces from above after all that effort, that taste of salt, with the icy wind whipping and greeting you. Up there I feel good, and with those few people who understand the never noisy beauty of all this, I can truly open up, and this makes me want to return, again and again.
Yes, I found a lot of truth in this “Le otto Montagne” and although it’s not a masterpiece, I recommend it.
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